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How to get started in fly tying
I’ve had folks show up in the shop and ask me to sell them “everything they need” because they’re going to start fly tying. I’ve always been struck speechless by that remark. I’ve looked around the shop and tried to tally up “everything” a person would need to start tying and the list is endless. A person could spend $600 on tools alone, $300 on rooster necks, $100 on an assortment of hooks and $150 to $200 on all the other miscellaneous furs and feathers to have “everything” you’d need. More than once I’ve swallowed hard and told the person I just couldn't do that: I wouldn’t feel right selling somebody a whole bunch of stuff they might never need.
My standard operating procedure is to show the customer a couple of books that will actually teach them how to tie flies, walk them through the tools they'll need to get started and then pick out the materials they'll need to tie the first pattern in that book. I tell them to go home and tie a dozen flies and bring them to me so I can critique them. When they do that I can walk them through the next fly in their book, pick out the materials they'll need and send them home with the same instructions: Come back with some samples to critique. This way the customer is never buying more than they need and that's a situation I can live with. Having said that, here are the five basic tools you'll need to get started.
Tools
The Fly Tying Vise is the most important and the most expensive tool in your fly tying arsenal. Prices these days range from $12 or $15 to around $350. The low end stuff is usually made in India and should be avoided as it is truly junk. The most important quality of a fly tying vise is that it hold your hook firmly. The second most important characteristic is that it not break. Cheap vises fail on both counts. Really. Good vises that work and come with a guarantee start at $34. We had a bunch of the cheap ones in our classroom tool kits several years ago and they were, charitably speaking, troublesome. I replaced them with a bunch of these $34 American made vises and haven't had a lick of down time since.
The Bobbin is a pretty simple little clamp that holds a spool of thread and feeds the end of the thread through a tube. This allows you to attach the thread to the hook shank or bind materials to the hook without ever touching the thread with your fingers. A good bobbin should not have sharp edges, which will cut the thread, and should allow you to adjust the thread tension without too much difficulty. Prices start around $6 and go upto $17.
The Scissors must be sturdy enough to cut deer hair and lead wire with tips fine enough to snip thread or errant feather fibers. Let me clue you in on something: Your average pair of Fiskars aren't good enough. In fact, we're regularly visited by needle pointers because our scissors are so much better than the average stuff in the thread shops. Most of our scissors are made in Pakistan for the surgical trade and they are wonderful. Most people who tie wind up having two or three pairs, one for heavy duty cutting and another for very fine work. Your first pair should be an "all purpose" and the prices will run between $5 and $16.
The Hackle Pliers works sort of like a miniature clothes pin. Its job is to securely hold the tip of a feather without breaking it. This allows you to wrap the feather around the hook shank. This tool was originally designed by the British, but has been greatly improved by the Americans. Prices range between $4 and $10.
The Half Hitch Tool/Dubbing Needle is actually two tools in one, with one end used for tying off the finished fly and the other end used for picking out fur or trapped feather fibers. Not only is it a bargain because it's two tools in one, at $2 it's also the least expensive tool in the arsenal so you can finally relax.
If you're careful you can get these tools for about $50. In fact I just priced them here and came up with $50.80 before tax. And did you notice a pro-American bias in this list? I'm really not that provincial it's just that I've seen all the problems associated with bad tools and I just don't believe you need that. I know I don't. Fly tying is supposed to be fun and your tools are the critical link in this great hobby. Get good ones and they won't fail.
Hooks
The foundation for any fly tying activity is the hook, and hooks pose a conundrum: Not only are the numbering systems meaningless, there's almost no correlation between one company's dimensions and another's, i.e. the hook shank lengths, hook gaps, type of bend and wire diameter all vary. In a nymph or streamer hook that might not pose too big a problem. Even if you're tying standard dry flies like an Adams, the size disparity from one company to another might not be too bad. However, if you're attempting to match the hatch a difference of only one millimeter could be crucial to the success of the pattern. Since each hook model will be made of a particular gauge of wire, will have a specific hook shank length relative to the gap, will have a sproat limerick and model perfect bend and a hook eye that's either looped, ringed, turned up or turned down it will help to simplify the process of hook selection.
My recommendation is that you pick a good brand and stick to it. Limit your selection to only a few models and a few sizes in each model at first. To get started this is what you need:
1. A standard length, light wire dry fly hook in sizes 12 - 18.
2. A 1X long, standard wire nymph hook in sizes 12 - 18
3. A 2X long, standard wire nymph hook for bead head flies in sizes 8 - 14.
4. A 3X long, standard wire large nymph and streamer hook in sizes 4 - 10.
You'd spend a small fortune if you went out and bought all of these at once so let's just stick to the streamer hook for the time being, since we'll be using that to tie our first fly. Make a note to pick up a couple of sizes while we move on to materials.
Materials
I know an angler who bet a friend that he could lash brown
carpet fibers to a hook and catch trout with it and that's
exactly what he did. The point of which is that almost anything
can be used for fly tying materials if it can be lashed to
the hook. Over the last couple of decades there's been a proliferation
of materials that have been added to the fly tying arsenal,
so let's try to break materials down into categories by usage.
Hopefully that'll make it easier to understand. You don't have
to memorize this list or spend your time accumulating its contents.
Just familiarize yourself with the applications that various
materials have and at the end of this page you'll find a list
of materials for your first fly.
Bodies
Most people use fur for constructing nymph and dry fly
bodies. There are plenty to choose from: rabbit, muskrat,
fox, beaver, mink, seal, mole, opossum, goat and sheep just
to name a few. A modern material for dry fly bodies, which
is used exactly like these natural ones, is polypropylene. Other
materials used for dry fly bodies are floss, peacock herl, deer hair and
quill (rooster, turkey or goose). Materials for nymphs and wets would be,
yarn, floss, peacock herl, chenille and tinsel.
Wings
The most common feathers for dry fly wings are wood duck,
mallard and teal flank feathers. Other common feathers would
be hen, mallard quill and turkey flats. Feathers used for
wet flies would be hen, ostrich herl, marabou and mallard quill. The
most common hairs used for dry fly wings are deer hair, elk
hair, calf body hair and calf tail. The most common material
for dry fly tails by a wide margin is rooster hackle but it's possible to
substitute moose body hair or even bucktail. A few patterns call for calf
tail and fewer still call for mink guard hairs. Trailing shucks are popular
and are tied with antron yarn or marabou. Tails on wet flies and nymphs are
usually tied with softer materials like pheasant tail fibers, squirrel tail,
marabou or hen hackle. Some patterns call for stiff material like goose biot.
Wing Cases
You'll only find these on nymphs and they're usually
made with turkey or goose quill, although it's easy to substitute
peacock herl. Some synthetics are also used. These are some
kind of plastic and go by names like Swiss Straw, Scud Back
and Thin Skin.
Legs
On a wet fly or nymph you're talking about a soft feather
like hen, grouse or partridge. If you're talking about a
dry fly you're talking about a whole different ball game.
Dry Fly Hackle...
gets its own category. This is a feather
from a rooster that's bred specifically and exclusively for
its hackle, or feathers. These birds are inedible. One of
the largest breeders simply composts the carcasses of the chickens
he harvests and the compost is eventually spread on his fields.
Save your allowance because these feathers (left on the skin
and called the neck or cape) are expensive.
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